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Timeline of American rockets

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The V-2 rocket, pictured here in 1944, was a German ballistic missile developed at the beginning of WWI. Both the US and Soviet space programs were founded on V-2 technology, having employed the German rocket scientists after World War II. AKG-Images/Newscom/File

The Bumper missile program combined the V-2 rocket and WAC Corporal and was inaugurated on June 20, 1947; pictured is a launch of the Bumper at Cape Canaveral, Fla., in 1950. AKG-Images/NASA/Newscom/File

Pictured is the take-off of the Mercury-Redstone 3 mission – the first manned US space flight – in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on May 5, 1961. Astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space as he piloted a 15-minute Project Mercury suborbital flight in the Freedom 7 spacecraft, three weeks after the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had carried out the first orbital spaceflight. AKG-Images/Newscom/File

Pictured is the launch of Friendship 7, the first American manned orbital space flight, on Feb. 20, 1962. The Mercury-Atlas 6 mission made three orbits of the Earth, piloted by astronaut John Glenn, who became the first American to orbit the Earth. NASA/Sipa Press/Newscom/File

Gemini 2 was the second spaceflight of the American human spaceflight program Project Gemini. Gemini 2, like Gemini 1, was an unmanned mission intended as a test flight of the Gemini spacecraft. Gemini 3 was used for manned space flight on March 23, 1965. AKG-Images/Newscom/File

Viking 1 was launched by a Titan/Centaur rocket from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at on Aug. 20, 1975, to begin a half-billion mile, 11-month journey through space to explore Mars. The 4-ton spacecraft went into orbit around the red planet in mid-1976. NASA/Sipa Press/Newscom/File

An Atlas V rocket carrying the Juno spacecraft launches on launch pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Aug. 5. The primary mission goal is to reveal the formation and evolution of the planet Jupiter. The scientific spacecraft is scheduled to arrive to the planet Jupiter on July 4, 2016. Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel/MCT/File

The space shuttle Atlantis STS-135 lifts off from launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on July 8. The 12-day mission to the International Space Station was the last mission in the Space Shuttle program, a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA which began in 1981. Pierre Ducharme/Reuters

This artist's concept shows the launch of the rocket design called the Space Launch System. The design for NASA's newest behemoth of a rocket harkens back to the giant workhorse liquid rockets that propelled men to the moon. But this time the destinations will be much farther, and the rocket even more powerful. NASA/AP/File

NASA launched a novel new heat shield prototype on a successful test flight Monday (July 23), a mission that sent a high-tech space balloon streaking through Earth's atmosphere at hypersonic speeds of up Mach 10.